All Things Lost
by lauraxtennant
Summary: What if there was a video recording made for the Doctor that he never saw? What if everything that happened in the last two years had to happen, or else a worse fate would befall them? Starring the Doctor, Martha, Jack, Rose, and a very special guest...
1. The Man Who Knew

_**A/N: Summary: What if there was a video recording made for the Doctor that he never saw? What if everything that happened in the last two years had to happen, or else a worse fate would befall them? What if he can't change the past, but neither can he change the future, because the vital video recording that would enable him to do so has gone missing? What if in saving the World again, he loses something he didn't know he had?**_

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><p><em><strong>All Things Lost<strong>_

_**Part 1**_

-x-

_Rose switched on the video camera. "Doctor," she greeted swiftly, with the briefest of smiles. "I don't know if this is gonna work, but if you're watching this then you need to listen. You really, really need to listen. 'Cos what I'm gonna say changes everything."_

-x-

_Eight months earlier for him, two and a half years earlier for her..._

She was waiting for the Doctor at the corner of the street.

They were in plain old 21st century London, planning on visiting Jackie, when Rose had accidently wandered off after seeing something mysterious going on with a suspicious looking monk and his alarmingly large suitcase. She'd been wary of monks ever since their werewolf adventure, and seeing one who looked like he'd popped up from the 14th century with a Gucci travel case really rang alarm bells. So, when the Doctor was distracted by this little old bookshop they popped into whenever they came back to Earth, Rose headed off, following the monk.

Of course, jeopardy-friendly as she was, she landed in a _wee bit of trouble..._trouble involving being suspended over a huge vat of boiling spaghetti in the middle of a disused warehouse – but, but, _but,_ it was a good job she did, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to stop the monk from taking over the World. Or maybe just South London, but anyway. The crisis was averted when the Doctor, who'd been tracking Rose via her phone signal since about thirty seconds after she'd left him, arrived to sort out the misplaced-in-time-and-space alien and save Rose from being turned into Bolognese sauce.

There was, however, a rather large mess to clean up. Instead of scarpering like they usually did, they tried to have a bit of a tidy; but then some soldier blokes from UNIT turned up and thought that Rose and the Doctor were responsible for the sort-of bomb thing going off, which, okay _maybe they were, _but still – it was necessary. But _no, _UNIT didn't need any help _thanks very much, so kindly be on your way. _The Doctor was only too happy to oblige and leave them to clean up the sorry mess, but once they'd started walking away, a UNIT officer called back the Time Lord and said he needed a word. The Doctor had replied _go ahead. _The UNIT officer had glanced meaningfully at Rose, indicating that she was not to hear what he was going to say. Rolling her eyes, Rose surprised the Doctor by simply exiting the warehouse without protest, knowing that the Doctor would fill her in afterwards anyway.

Hence why she was now waiting for him around the corner, trying, desperately, _desperately _trying to find some more excitement – well, okay..._danger – _to immerse herself into. She was so bored. He'd still not come out, and it'd been..oh. Well, only twenty minutes. But it felt like longer.

-x-

"_And then, well. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for never telling you this at the time, but you'll understand one day, you'll have to." She took in a deep breath and stared straight at the camera. "I met a man who told me secrets of a future I did not want to have."_

-x-

And then this man came up to her. Dark hair, manic eyes, and a smarmy grin; Rose eyed him carefully.

"You alright?" she asked, when he simply stood in front of her silently.

His eyes lit up. "Yes! Yes, I'm just..._fantastic!_" he announced.

Rose squinted at him. "Right...so...can I help you?"

"Oh yes, Rose Tyler. You can help me very much," he nodded.

Her eyebrows rose. "How do you know my name?"

"Oh, I know everything about you, Rose," he said, his tone suddenly soft.

"And why's that, exactly?" she asked, her instincts telling her to be cautious of this man with the calm exterior but wild expression.

"Don't you recognise me, Rose?"

She didn't reply straight away. She contemplated him for a second, tilting her head from side to side. Then, she looked into his eyes. Deep into his eyes, as if she was reading his soul. Then, she shook her head. "You're not the Doctor," she said quietly.

The man sighed. "I am, Rose. It's me." He waved at her, right in front of her face. "Hello!"

"You're not," she insisted.

"I am!"

"Go on then, let me feel your double heartbeat - " she started, reaching her hand to his chest. He flinched away from her before she could make contact, and she smiled smugly. "See."

He huffed. "How could you tell, straight off? He might've regenerated."

"Your eyes," she answered simply, shrugging.

"What about them?"

"The way you look at me," she clarified.

Comprehension dawned. The man smiled. Rose thought it looked a little cruel, and took a reflexive step back. "You mean I don't look at you like I..._know _you?"

She swallowed. "Something like that, yeah."

"Right. Oh, well. Worth a try!" he said breezily.

"So, who are you?"

"Oh, you don't need to know my name. But I'm an old friend of the Doctor's. And he speaks so fondly of you, I just wanted to meet you..."

Rose's brow furrowed in confusion. "Then why doesn't he bring me to see you, instead of you stalking me?"

The man let out a short laugh. "Oh, you are clever. I see it all, now, you know. The reasons why he's so enamoured with you." He raised his hand to her face and cupped her cheek. "You're quite beautiful, really. For a human."

Rose took another step back, and his hand slipped from her face. "What do you want?"

"I told you," he sighed impatiently. "I just wanted to meet you. See you in the flesh, as opposed to in his memories."

"You're from the future," she stated.

"Yep! It's a jolly good future, too," He paused, looking thoughtful. Then he smiled, almost apologetically, though Rose could sense some underlying amusement. "Oops, no it isn't. Well, it is. For me! But not for the Doctor. And not for his lovely Rose."

"What's going to happen?" she asked before she could stop herself. She knew, realistically, that she couldn't know. That it could cause a paradox and all that. But something instinctive told her to question this strange, slightly scary man. Something told her he was not to be trusted.

"Ooh, lots of things. From his thoughts and memories and feelings, I've gathered you have quite a whale of a time over the coming months. _But..._well. There's a day when a war comes to 21st century London. And on that day..." the man made a sharp sound at the back of his throat that turned into a little giggle. "There be monsters!"

Rose rolled her eyes and folded her arms, feigning a confidence she wasn't quite sure she really felt. "Go on then. What's your instruction? Do I get some sort of foreboding warning or something?"

"Well, aren't you a feisty little..." he trailed off, smiling to himself. "I will give you a warning. Because this day to come...it is going to tear you and your handsome Doctor apart. _Forever," _he told her tauntingly.

She swallowed hard. "Alright then. We'll see about that, shall we?" she dismissed airily.

"On the day of the army of ghosts, turn around and flee Earth. Just get in the TARDIS and _run. _Or you'll never see him again. Not ever," warned the man, his tone low, his eyes dark.

-x-

"_But I couldn't do that, you see. Because they needed us. I couldn't tell you to turn your back on the entire human race and let those things destroy the Earth, just so we could stay together. I couldn't. And I didn't want to believe what he said was gonna come true. I thought we could defy it, somehow. I thought I _did _defy it, by coming right back when you sent me away with the dimension hopper. I thought we could save the World, just like we usually did, and then be back home in the TARDIS by the end of the night. I was stupid. I was wrong. But I could never regret it, because to have left the Earth when it needed us would have been so, so selfish." She paused, blinking back tears. "But now I know something else, and it's...it's even worse, if that's possible, and now I can't prepare you for it, or help you through it, because I'm not there with you." She swallowed thickly and continued, "I'm so sorry I can't be there to hold your hand through this, because...it's gonna be tough." She paused again, looking into the lens unblinkingly as she revealed, "You're not alone, Doctor."_

-x-

After his revelation, the man had turned and disappeared from her view within moments. Rose had been left standing there, breathing heavily, fear curling in a tight ball inside her stomach until she felt sick with it.

But she brushed it off. She didn't tell the Doctor. And they went on as normal.

She didn't see the man again until he came for her, while she was trapped on a parallel Earth.

"Rose Tyler," he said, as he stepped into her office at Torchwood. "The Bad Wolf herself! How positively _lovely _to see you again!"

Her reaction time was impeccable. She stood up the second he'd entered, the gun she rarely used and even more rarely _wanted _to use trained fully on him without a moment's hesitation. "You knew," she muttered coldly. "How?"

He raised his hands in surrender, and smiled gently. "Because he told me all about it. Or rather, I looked into his mind and _saw_..."

"Why did you tell me to stop it?"

"Why didn't you do as I told you?"

She ignored his question as effortlessly as he'd ignored hers, and repeated herself, "Why did you tell me to stop it?"

"Because I wanted you to stay with him."

"But not because you're his friend," she stated knowingly. "I could see it in your eyes. You were delighting in the power you had. In the pain that would come to both me and him. So why would you want us to stay together?"

He took a step closer to her. Rose flicked back the safety catch on her gun, and he immediately looked apologetic. He never trusted a blonde with a gun. It was a very volatile combination. Which was why he never let his dear Lucy near one.

He was surprised, truly. That Rose, the girl who the pacifist Doctor loved, could wield a gun so confidently. Still, he supposed, she'd probably been hardened by her plight here in Pete's World. She was stubborn, determined, and outstandingly courageous; that he could tell from the Doctor's mind. And he'd seen what she'd done with the Daleks, with the vortex inside of her. It shouldn't surprise him, really, that she would, without a doubt, kill any man who she perceived as a) a threat to the Doctor or b) a threat to her _being _with the Doctor.

"For my master plan," he answered quietly.

"And what's that?" she persisted impatiently.

"Let me take you for a drink and I'll tell you," he grinned.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, I bet the Doctor'd love that. Me going on a date with his arch enemy or whoever you are."

"Why shouldn't you?" He leant forward conspiringly. "He's got a new..._companion._ Why shouldn't you be allowed to enjoy yourself too, eh?"

She pretended the idea of the Doctor with anyone else but her didn't bruise her heart and instead said, very calmly, with an arched eyebrow and a wry smile, "I don't even know your name."

"You can call me anything you want, sweetheart," he countered. He paused, then. "Well, except _Doctor. _That would boost his ego far too high, and both of us know that's not needed."

Rose chuckled, though she wasn't particularly amused. "Who are you?" she asked again.

He extended his hand out in a peace offering and answered, "Harold Saxon. Prime Minister of Great Britain."

Her eyebrows rose. "So, if I shoot you, I'm basically assassinating an evil politician?"

"I'm not evil!" he protested.

Rose smiled. "Well, you're still a politician. Reason enough."

"What makes you think I'm evil, though?"

"You're a maniac. You're arrogant. You're narcissistic. You're a tiny bit afraid that I'm going to pull this trigger – but not _that _afraid. And seeing as you're human - "

" – what makes you think I'm human?" he said, grinning triumphantly.

"Well, whatever you are, you can't be a..." Rose trailed off and went very still as she watched Harold's eyes twinkle merrily at her. "...Time Lord," she finished quietly.

"No?"

"You wouldn't let me feel your double heartbeat," she murmured.

"Because I realised then that you'd know your Doctor anywhere. You looked so sure, so _sure _that I wasn't him. It's amazing, really, that you have such a natural good instinct. You didn't trust me from the moment you laid eyes on me, did you?"

"Nope," she exhaled roughly. "Your name isn't really Harold Saxon, is it?"

He winked at her. "Clever girl."

"Not really. It's just that Harold's a rubbish name for a Time Lord."

He scowled at her as if she'd greatly offended him. "I actually quite like it."

"Sorry," she half-smiled. "So...just to check you're telling me the truth for once, can I feel your hearts _now?"_

"Is that a euphemism?" he asked hopefully.

"In your dreams."

"Yep. And his," he grinned. "You put the gun down, then."

She swallowed nervously and lowered the gun. When she reached her hand to touch his chest, he let her. She felt the double beat beneath her palm and felt a bit light-headed at what that meant. The Doctor wasn't alone. There was another Time Lord. Good times. But he was an evil Time Lord. Bad times.

"Answer this," she said next, just to make sure. "What's the name of your planet?"

"Gallifrey," he replied succinctly, a lump in his throat.

"And what happened to it?"

"Your Doctor destroyed it." He sounded scathing.

"And where did you go, eh?" she countered defensively. "Run away, did you? Leave the Doctor to sort out all that on his own?"

He glared at her, and for the next few moments, Rose really saw what it was like to stare into the eyes of someone who'd lost their mind. She mildly regretted her words.

"Don't get all righteous with me," he spat, his voice low and dangerous. "It's not your war to talk about, _human."_

Her free hand clenched anxiously at her side. "I know that. And I am sorry, for all that you both lost. But he thought he was alone. He said he couldn't sense any other Time Lord still alive. How come, if you survived too?"

He let out a short, tiresome sigh. "It's all very complicated. But I basically re-wrote my biology to disguise myself as human. Only, I disguised myself so well that even _I _didn't remember who I was. But then...the Doctor showed up. And I remembered."

"Right," she breathed out roughly. "So...so what's this master plan of yours, then?"

He smiled. "I'm going to take you back to our universe."

"Why?"

"Because I've realised that being his enemy is no fun anymore, not when he's not fighting back. He's completely useless without his lovely blonde by his side to spur him on. Or to save him. And he needs saving right now, Rose. Boy does he need saving." He chuckled darkly.

"You've trapped him, haven't you? Got him imprisoned?" She raised her gun again.

"Hey, now. That may be so, but you'll never get back to save him if you shoot me now..." he tried to reason with her.

"Yeah? Well I've got news for you, mate. I'm working on something, ooh...very _impressive..._and it's gonna send me back."

"Really? Well, I must say, I'm very proud of you. He would be, too. But tell me...is it reliable? Could it get you _exactly _to the right point in time and space that you need to be?"

She winced. "Well, no."

"Then you need me."

"But how did _you _get here?"

He smiled. "He didn't lie to you," he told her, surprisingly gently. "He really did think it was impossible. Well, it is."

"He couldn't do it on his own," Rose realised.

"Got it in one, sugar!" he exclaimed, in a bad American accent.

"But how comes you're here? How did you convince him to do this? Surely he knows you're just doing this to use it against him. I mean, I'm not naive enough to believe that you've come here to send me back to save him, however bored you are."

"He doesn't know."

"But you just said that one Time Lord can't open the breach," she pointed out, confused.

"He doesn't know he _helped," _he clarified. "I am very clever, after all. He doesn't have any clue I've come to get you. Which will make your return that much more spectacular, eh? Then you can try and save him, and I can try to stop you, and we'll see if the Valiant Child and the Oncoming Storm can defeat the Master."

Rose almost smiled. "Seriously? That's your name? 'The Master?'"

"Yep. Does it scare you?"

She laughed loudly. "Of course not. Our names are much better!"

-x-

"_I don't know who you're travelling with now but you need to protect them. Harold Saxon is nothing short of evil; but then, you know that, don't you? Or at least, you'll know him by his Time Lord name. He's the Master, apparently. And I think he used to be your friend, but then he became your nemesis." She inhaled deeply. "Do you know, for a bit, I sort of thought he was just a little misunderstood. I thought, maybe, he could heal. Over time. Like you did." _

_She let out a bitter laugh. "But I don't think anything except the return of Gallifrey would put a genuine smile on his face. And he's turned that anger and resentment and the madness of the drums and he's crafted it into a malicious vision to remove any sort of happiness in the lives of others. He's going to try and kill half the population and enslave the other half." Despite the tears streaming down her face, she refused to acknowledge them at all, refraining from even wiping them away. "And what's worse is, he's going to make you watch."_


	2. The Woman in the Red Dress

_**All Things Lost**_

_**Part 2**_

_-x-_

"_What I'm trying to say, in a really messed up way, is that you've got worse times coming for you. You can't just sit around and wallow about me getting trapped on Pete's World, because you've got bigger things to worry about, quite frankly. And you cannot change it. Not any of it. You can't go back on my timeline, you can't change what happened at Canary Wharf, or else you'll never meet your new friend and you'll never discover the Master and his plan. But let me tell you this – and now, here's where it gets even more complicated. You can't change _that_, either, because otherwise, you'll never see me again." She paused, and the corner of her mouth twitched up slightly. "I know, I know! You're thinking, what? I'm in another dimension, of course you're not gonna see me again. But you're wrong." Her bit of a smile faded as quickly as it came. "You're so wrong. Because he did what he said he was gonna do. He brought me back."_

_-x-_

"Welcome to _The Valiant, _Rose Tyler," he announced, spreading his arms wide as he gestured around them.

"The Valiant?" Rose said questioningly.

"It's an airborne aircraft carrier that I've...requisitioned," the Master grinned. "I expect UNIT named it after you, Valiant Child and all that!" He started cackling with laughter.

She rolled her eyes and coughed a bit, spluttering in the thick, humid air. "And where are we right now, the basement?" she said sarcastically, squinting in the dim light, shifting on her feet uneasily. Her hair was starting to stick to the back of her neck and she was knackered. Travelling through dimensions seemed to take it out of you. She sighed, wishing she could have a nice, hot shower and then find the Doctor.

"Well done, you!" he answered patronisingly. "Your new home. Lovely, isn't it?"

"Look, if you think you're just gonna leave me down here after dragging me all this way - "

"No, no, no, no," he interrupted, tapping her on the nose. He moved in closer to her and she held her breath. "You don't get to make the rules, Miss Tyler. Now, follow me." He yanked on her arm and she yanked it back. But his grip was even stronger when he grabbed her again, and she was forced to let him guide her down the corridor.

There wasn't much to look at on this short journey to a holding cell, but she was quick to note in her head any possible escape routes. She reckoned the adjacent corridor, which they had to pass before he shoved her into her new confinement, led to the stairs or lift or something that would take them upwards from the bowels of the aircraft carrier to the deck.

"So. Here's what's going to happen," the Master told her cheerfully. "You're going to sit down here..." He waved his hand around the tiny room. She looked dismally upon her surroundings: four grey walls, a smaller-than-single bed pushed up against one of them, a desk and television screen against another, and a small wash basin and toilet in the corner of the room. How civilised this prison cell was compared to many others she had frequented in the past.

"And I'm going to be very, very nice and let you watch the CCTV footage of what's going on upstairs on deck." He grinned at her manically. "I'm sure you'll recognise him, even if he does look rather different from the last time you saw him."

Her eyes widened. "He's regenerated again?"

"Oh no," he chuckled. "Worse than that." At Rose's confused look, the Master continued, "I've disabled his regeneration capabilities. He looks very, very old, now, Rose. He looks his age. I'm sure you won't find him quite as attractive now!" He laughed loudly, folding his arms with an odd expression on his face to which Rose was now attributing to his characteristic of _evil. _He waggled his eyebrows at her and she looked at the floor, painfully reminded of another Time Lord who used to do that when he was teasing her. "Perhaps you'll want to go for that drink with me after all, then, eh? If Time Lords are your thing. 'Cos you won't want him now."

And with that, he turned and dashed out of the room. Rose, who had unthinkingly sat on the bed, rushed over to the door just as he was bolting it shut from the outside.

"_Shit," _she muttered to herself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." She bashed her head against the door a couple of times, cursing herself for being so tired that she couldn't overpower him to free herself, that she'd sat down without considering how easy it would then be for him to lock her away. Her head started to pound and she winced. Fighting the urge to attempt breaking the cold, metal door down with her bare fingers, Rose instead shouted out, hoping the Master could hear her, "I'll save him, you know! Or he'll save me!" She paused. "Well, someone'll do the saving and someone will get saved, anyway. And then you'll be sorry!"

She heard the Master's laughter get quieter and quieter and sighed heavily, once more looking around the meagre room and its overwhelming sense of grey doom.

_Still_, she thought, as she trudged her way back to the bed, _at least it's cooler in here than in that bloody furnace of a corridor._

And as she lay back on the mattress and closed her eyes in the hope of alleviating her headache with some rest so that she would be able to think of a better plan, she pondered the Master's reasons for going back in time to see her all that time ago. And she realised just what sort of person he was, and knew exactly the reason why.

-x-

She was stuck in that room for days, living on disgusting dried food that she'd found in the cupboards beneath the sink. She'd tried everything she could to get out of her imprisonment, kicking the door; dismantling the cupboard and then trying to wrench the door open with the pieces of wood and chrome; screaming and shouting obscenities and threats through the door to somewhere she hoped the Master could hear. She paced up and down the room, going out of her wit's end with worry about what to do. She tried to wash using the small sink, but she was aware she smelled terribly of unwashed human in spite of her attempts.

She slept fitfully and constantly had a headache, something she was now putting down to her transportation through dimensions via the Master's less than efficient method – a Time Lord science thing she couldn't begin to understand, no matter how much she had worked with her team of scientists at Torchwood to try and get that dimension cannon of hers working. She thought about all that work and realised what a waste of time it had been. She thought about those she'd left behind in Pete's World without so much as a goodbye. She wanted a hug from her Mum, a shoulder squeeze from Pete, a cuddle with her little brother and a gossip with Mickey and Jake. She hated the silence and isolation of this room and its grey, grey walls, and she felt like she was suffocating half the time, claustrophobic and restless and _needing _to breathe, needing to get out, needing to feel the sunlight on her skin. She felt useless, utterly, utterly useless. More useless than she'd felt in years.

But worst of all this that she had to endure was the little television screen on that desk against the wall opposite her. As the Master had promised, it had spurred to life to show her live footage of _The Valiant's_ deck and main room. She was forced to watch as the Master paraded up and down, childlike with glee as he watched over his destruction of Earth; as he abused his staff with words and the woman in the red dress with his fist; as he taunted her Doctor, her poor, poor Doctor, helpless in his fate and trapped like some sort of animal, some sort of _prize. _Seeing all of this, the Master's treatment of everything around him, made Rose's stomach clench in disgust, and it wasn't rare for her to throw up into that little sink of hers at the sight of it all.

A woman called Lucy, the woman in the red dress, the Master's _wife, _of all things, came down to see her one day, though, out of the blue. She wore a white chiffon dress that day, and had a purple bruise over her left eye to accessorise it. Rose felt sick with both sorrow for Lucy, and nerves at what Lucy had come to see her for.

"Hello," Rose murmured, trying to decide whether she could push past Lucy and into the corridor or whether this was some sort of trap.

"Hello," Lucy replied. She looked dazed as she stepped towards Rose. "My name's Lucy Saxon. I have come to warn you," she whispered, her breath catching her throat. She glanced away and blinked back tears, and Rose bit her lip worriedly at what she was going to say. "He's decided he wants to...visit you."

"What?"

"Harry. He's going to...he's going to let you out of this room later. But I don't know what he's going to do with you. But I think I guess."

"Right," Rose breathed out roughly. "So. What do you suggest I do?"

"I'm sorry. There's nothing you can do. If I let you out now, if I let you escape...he'll hurt me."

"Why are you with that man, Lucy?"

Lucy frowned, as if she didn't comprehend the question. As if there was an obvious answer. "Because I love him."

Rose sighed. "Right." She met her eyes steadily. "But you know what he is doing is wrong?"

Lucy hesitated, then said, "Yes."

"Good."

"I hope..."

"What?"

"I hope you stay strong, and I hope you stay safe, Rose," Lucy said softly.

She closed her eyes and whispered meaningfully, "Thank you." When she opened them, Lucy was gone. The door was still open.

Rose Tyler, unable to bear the thought of the Master hurting Lucy even more if he realised she'd let her escape, walked over and firmly shut it, once again leaving herself trapped. She sat back down on the bed, glanced at the television screen, and swallowed hard. The Master was coming.


End file.
